nd the sun astern?"

Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then
observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very
blinding palpableness must have been the cause.

Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse
of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost
seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two
compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew,
the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happened
before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses--that's
all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it."

"Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the pale mate,
gloomily.

Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than
one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as
developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially one with
the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled
at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has
actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and
rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal;
all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic
steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in
either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original
virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected,
the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were
the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.

Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed
compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took
the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were
exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be
changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod
thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair
one had only been juggling her.

Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing,
but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask--who
in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise
unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though som